Slowly Starting
by Fenreil
Summary: Yang's motionless days begin again when Qrow arrives, bringing news of a means of replacing her right arm


"Please lie down on the operating table."

The voice that echoed through the room's hidden loudspeakers was the very model of efficiency, devoid of the distractions of tone, gender, and emotion. One might even be inclined, upon hearing it, to believe that it was not the creation of a being of flesh and blood, but summoned directly from the unadorned gray walls themselves

Yang complied with the voice's request, clambering awkwardly onto the table, still unused to life with only one arm.

"Good," said the voice, betraying no such emotion. "The anaesthetic will now be administered. Please count backwards from ten as it takes effect." This command was punctuated by a brief burst of static, then silence, leaving the room cold and empty once again.

Yang closed her eyes, and opened her mouth.

"Ten."

How long had it been, since the day that everything changed? How long had it been since she had retreated to her bed, content as a mere observer to the world? How long had it been since her fire died, leaving only ash in its place? She could not answer.

The passage of time meant nothing to her. Time would not heal her wounds. Time would not bring back Penny, Pyrrah, or any of the others that had fallen. Time would not fix her mistakes. So, she gave its flow no attention, allowing the sun to rise and set without marking its passing. Her disdain was so great that she could not even tell what the current day, or even month was. To her, the only time worth remembering was that night, the fall of Beacon.

"Eight."

There had been visitors at first, mostly classmates, making a solemn pilgrimage to her home in Patch to offer their condolences and words of encouragement. They would sometimes bring gifts, but never came without news of the outside world. The specifics differed from visitor to visitor, but the core of the message was always the same: life was different. Beacon's fall had brought with it new responsibilities, stripping them of their status as students in all but name. They had been forced to discard what childishness they had, and don the mantle of adulthood early.

"Seven."

She hated their presence. It reminded her of what she had lost. So, she drove them away, not with not with harsh words or actions, but with silence. No matter how much cheeriness or hope her guests could pour out to her, it would always fall uselessly against her impenetrable wall of silence. In time, word got out: Yang Xiao Long was not to be disturbed. The flow of visitors gradually dwindled to a trickle, and eventually vanished entirely. There was one person, whoever, who refused to leave her alone, no matter how thick and unpierceable her silence.

"Six."

If anyone was worthy of the description, "Kind to a fault", it was Taiyang Xiao Long. He spared no expense for his injured daughters, pouring every ounce of his concentration into caring for them. He declined all work from Vale, refusing to even leave his house except to retrieve supplies. He washed their clothes, made their meals, changed their sheets, and was never seen without a gentle smile. Yang tried her best to avoid his gaze. His kindness was like a knife to her, twisting itself cruelly into her heart with each and every interaction.

"Five."

One day, sometime after Ruby had left, Qrow arrived. He brought news, not of Beacon, or the other Kingdoms, but news pertaining specifically to Yang. News about her arm. Apparently, he had convinced an Atlas hospital to outfit her with a prosthetic arm. However, she would have to travel to Atlas to receive it, and she would have to make the journey alone. Taiyang objected, demanding that he be allowed to travel with her, at least, but Qrow refused to budge. Those were the terms he was given, he explained, and there was no room for argument.

"Four."

Yang had agreed to Qrow's proposal, interrupting her father's dispute. Truth be told, she had no interest in replacing her arm. In fact, she very much disliked the prospect of leaving her room to travel elsewhere, but the chance to go somewhere where her father could not reach her was far too tempting to pass up.

"Three."

Taiyang couldn't object to his daughter's decision. As much as he hated letting her out of his sight, he couldn't stand in her way when she was going to improve her health. And so, Yang found herself in a whirlwind of activity as her belongings were packed and rushed to Vale, where she boarded a small white airship for the long journey to Atlas.

"Two."

And that brought her here, to a cold room, waiting for darkness to overtake her.

"One."

The darkness obliged.

* * *

Yang opened her eyes.

For a moment, she imagined that she was back in her home at Patch. At any second, the door would open and her father was step in with a cheery morning greeting and a tray filled with food. A soft beep broke the silence instead. Yang looked around.

She was in a hospital room, sparsely furnished and enclosed by plain walls colored a dull gray. Beneath her lay a comfortable, if rather plain, white bed, and to her left stood a dizzying array of machines and monitors. Another beep filled the air, emitted by a device that seemed to be monitoring her heartbeat. To her right sat a large window, through which lay a sight far different from the one she was accustomed to seeing back in her own room. This place was somewhere quite far up a tall building, judging by how far beneath her the ground was. Hundreds of buildings rose up from the ground beneath her, extending outward towards the majestic chain of mountains that dominated the horizon before being enclosed by an imposing wall. Everything was blanketed in a thick and ever increasing layer of snow, muffling all human activity and making the city look more like a painting than a real place.

"M-Miss Xiao Long! You're awake."

A nurse had entered her room unnoticed, and was staring at Yang with her mouth agape.

"You should have been under for at least-". The nurse caught herself, and cleared her throat awkwardly. " I… that is… I'll go fetch the doctor!" She squeaked, and hurried out of the room.

The doctor that she returned with was a pleasant looking man, rotund, rosy-cheeked, and perpetually smiling. Much to Yang's annoyance, he sat down in a chair between her and the window, blocking her view of the city. He gave her his name, but she couldn't find much of a reason to care, and immediately forgot it.

"Well then," he said in the congenial, calming voice used by doctors everywhere, "how's the arm?"

The what? Oh yes, the reason she was here. Yang looked down at her right side to find a slender limb of silver and black, seemingly growing out of her right arm halfway up the bicep and lying inert on the bed sheets. As she stared at it in a mixture of curiosity and revulsion, its fingers moved without warning, twitching ever so slightly, as if they'd been pricked by a pin. Cautious, she remembered how she would move her old arm, and was surprised to find this foreign limb mimicking the motions exactly.

"Wonderful!" Exclaimed the doctor, scribbling something down in a small leather notebook. "Looks like all the neuro-links are working correctly. Try raising it up. Go on, get a good look at it."

Yang complied with the doctor's suggestion, and was surprised to find that the arm obeyed her thoughts exactly, lifting itself up until it was only a few inches from her face.

The doctor's smile widened. "Now, try closing the fingers."

Again, Yang complied, summoning up the memory of a clenched fist. The arm's fingers began to move at the same instant her thoughts formed, sending black fingers down into a silver palm. A shudder ran through her when they made contact. She could feel it, the cold touch of metal on her hand. It was unnerving, feeling something from a body part that no longer existed.

"Excellent, excellent," murmured the doctor as he scribbled in his book. "Well, I'm sorry to say this, but I'm going to have to leave you here." He closed his book, and stood up. " I have a number of prior engagements I have to attend to, you see. I'd have made time for you, but nobody expected you to get up so soon." He laughed, as if he'd made a joke. "You wouldn't believe how much anaesthetic we had to throw at you to get you under. Most folks only last a few seconds, but you made it the whole way through!" The doctor shook his head as if amazed by his own statement before continuing. "Don't you worry though, I'll make time to visit. We'll have you up and about in no time!" He exclaimed, a twinkle in his eye.

Yang wished he wouldn't, but the doctor hurried out of the room before she could voice her feelings, leaving her alone once again.

* * *

True to his word, the doctor showed up once each day to sit by her bed and examine her progress in controlling her arm during the next five days. Yang proved to be a natural fit for the limb, controlling it with nearly the same range of motion as her original arm, with one unusual exception.

"Hmm," hummed the doctor, whose name Yang still hadn't bothered to learn. "Try it once more, please."

Yang reluctantly tightened her grip on the small dumbell in her right hand and lifted, but it refused to budge.

"I just don't understand," sighed the doctor. "All my tests indicate that everything should be in working order."

He was quite puzzled by the situation. Somehow, despite otherwise being able to control her prosthetic perfectly, the girl seemed to be completely unable to lift anything of any real weight. Even a forkful of food proved to be a struggle for her, often escaping her grasp before it could make the journey from plate to mouth. Something of that weight should be beyond trivial, especially for a prosthetic of this caliber.

He sighed again. He didn't want to do this, but his time was up.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to schedule you for rehabilitation," he said, making sure his voice was calm. "Orders from up high, you know how it is."

She wasn't looking at him. She almost never did.

"I'm sure it'll go just fine, nothing worth worrying about." She still wasn't looking. It was hard to tell if she was paying attention or not. "A nurse will be by to fetch you tomorrow morning, okay?"

"...Alright.". Her response was quiet, devoid of emotion.

"Well then," he said, standing up, "good luck."

And then he left.

* * *

Yang found herself on a vast plain of barren, featureless earth. There was no moisture in it, no life, just ugly brown dust stretching out as far as the eye could see. The only other feature on this infinite plane of desolation was the sun. Impossibly huge, it dominated the horizon, stretching out nearly wider than her eye could see. Despite its size, however, it gave off little light, and what it did give was weak and red, not even enough to illuminate the sky, leaving it midnight black. It _boiled,_ visibly and audibly, filling the air with a dull and sickly roar, just barely loud enough to be heard above the sound of her own footsteps. The most horrible of its features, however, was the fact that it was slowly but steadily sinking down the horizon, with approximately one quarter of its height swallowed up by the soil. Soon it would be gone, leaving everything in utter darkness.

Yang walked forward aimlessly, dry earth cracking beneath her feet with each step. She did not know why she was walking, or even how long she'd been doing it. In fact, her head was empty, completely devoid of purpose beyond the completion of each individual step.

That is, until the scream. It was a sharp sound, piercing the air like an arrow and conveying an unmistakable plea for help. Yang ran towards it. Whoever it was, she had to help them, that much she knew. She ran and ran towards the scream's source, driving herself to the brink of exhaustion before she found it.

It was Ruby, held up a familiar masked Faunus, who was gripping her tightly by the neck. He smirked mockingly at Yang, as Ruby choked weakly under his grasp. Yang screamed in fury, and dashed at the man, but the ground gave way beneath her feet, sending her tumbling down into emptiness.

She fell and fell, screaming in terror for what felt like an eternity before finally colliding suddenly with the ground. She lost consciousness instantly.

When Yang opened her eyes, she found herself in a deep and dark forest. Silence ruled the air, save for the quiet rustle of wind through the trees, and the distant rumble of the red sun, now halfway down the horizon and barely visible through the trees. She was a child again, small, grimy, tired, and clutching onto a battered and empty red wagon like her life depended on it. The trees loomed ominously around her as she trudged through the forest, seeming as if they might spring to life at any moment and descend upon her.

A twig snapped behind her. Normally, such a sound would be unnoticeable, but the wood's silence rendered the quiet snap into a deafening crack. She quickened her pace, trying to quiet the growing ball of panic in the back of her mind.

Another snap, this one closer. Unable to control herself, Yang looked backwards. There, in the forest shadows, leered two glowing red eyes, staring at her unblinkingly.

Panic overtook her, sending her scrambling forward as quickly as she could go, stumbling over roots and branches clumsily in her haste to escape. The noises behind her grew, adding guttural snarls to the now cacophonous array of footsteps and breaking branches.

A protruding root caught her foot, sending her flying forward onto the ground and her wagon barrelling off alone into the depths of the forest. Frantic, she tried to push herself up to her feet, but discovered that her forearms had vanished, leaving her with two stubs far too short to push herself upright.

"Help!" She cried out to the forest. "Someone, please help!"

The only answer was the snarls behind her, growing louder with each second.

"Please!" She cried again, desperately trying to crawl forward, digging the stubs of her arms fruitlessly into the forest's soil. "Ruby! Weiss!"

Howling filled the once quiet forest, a hymn of beasts anticipating their hunt.

"Mom!" Pleaded Yang through pouring tears and bubbling snot, "Mommy help!"

Footsteps, directly in front of her. Yang raised her head towards the sound out of fear and hope in equal measure. It was Blake, staring down at her with impassive eyes.

"Blake! Blake, thank goodness!"

But Blake said nothing. She merely stared for a few seconds at Yang with all the intensity that one would give to a pebble in their path, before turning and walking away."

"No! Blake! Blake, don't leave me here!" Pleaded Yang, stretching out what remained of her arms towards the girl's retreating back. "Don't leave me alone!"

But Blake had vanished into the shadows, and the Grimm were upon her.

* * *

Yang bolted upright in her bed, gasping for air. She checked herself over, relieved to find that the teeth and claws that had torn her apart were nothing more than the instruments of a bad dream.

There was a nurse in the room, staring a Yang with a terrified expression. She was saying something, but Yang couldn't hear her over the sound of her heart beating frantically in her ears.

"I'm fine," said Yang, speaking more to herself than the nurse. "Everything's okay."

The nurse seemed unconvinced, pointing at the array of machines to Yang's left while saying something that she still couldn't quite make out.

"I'm _fine_ ," insisted Yang. "It was just... a bad dream."

She took a deep breath, and tried to drive all memory of her nightmare from her mind.

"What do you want?" She asked, hoping to distract her thoughts with conversation.

The nurse, still regarding Yang with a certain unease, explained that she had arrived to take Yang to the rehabilitation center, before hesitantly asking once again if she was really okay.

"I'm… okay."

It was a lie. She hadn't been okay in a very long time. Still, she felt compelled to hide this fact. The idea of receiving pity from the nurse disgusted her, so she forced the words out of her mouth as best she could.

The nurse seemed satisfied enough with this response, save for the sidelong glances she'd cast at her patient every few minutes as they traveled down the hospital's halls, as if Yang might suddenly leap out and attack her.

The journey to rehabilitation was swift. Due to hospital regulations, Yang was confined to a wheelchair, which the nurse pushed through the halls with a practiced ease. After passing more corridors and hallways than Yang cared to remember, they came upon an elevator guarded by an Atlesian soldier, who eyed them suspiciously through his visor.

The nurse proffered the small laminated card that hung from a lanyard around her neck to the guard, who examined it closely. After nodding in approval, he stepped aside, allowing the nurse access to a small display on the wall. She pulled a scroll from pockets, and tapped it against the display. The elevator doors opened, and the nurse pushed Yang inside.

The elevator was roomy, built to accommodate multiple wheelchair patients at a time. The quiet hum of its motor was the only sound to break the awkward silence between the two as they ascended toward their destination. To the nurse, the journey felt like a lifetime, but Yang barely even noticed that she had left her room.

A small antechamber awaited when the elevator finally stopped, populated entirely by two armed guards standing at attention next to a large and impressive-looking steel door, and a collection of sickly looking plants at room's corners.

Again, identification was procured, examined, and eventually accepted. The guards saluted at no one in particular, and stepped aside. On cue, the heavy metal door slid upwards into the ceiling, leaving an empty rectangle in the wall, through which nothing but darkness could be seen.

The nurse stated that she wasn't authorized to go any further. Yang would have to move ahead on her own.

So she did.

As the wheelchair was powered, all she had to do was push forward on its small control stick, sending herself slowly forward into the darkness. Small strips of light quietly hummed to life on the ground in front of her, guiding her path several meters into the room before abruptly coming to an end. Yang looked around, but couldn't see or hear anything at all.

Despite this, something made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Something was speaking to her on a level below conscious thought, telling her one single fact: She was not alone in this darkness.

"Hello?" she called out hesitantly. "Who's there?"

Lights flared above, blinding her in their sudden brilliance. A calm voice echoed out into the room.

"Hmmm, acceptable, I suppose." it said.

Yang blinked furiously, trying to restore her vision. When at last her eyes adjusted to the glare, she found herself in a room much larger than she had expected. Her wheelchair stood upon a large disk, one that nearly filled the whole room, suspended in thin air. A few rows of seats lined the rooms circular walls, separated from the disk by a couple meters of empty air, forming a strange sort of amphitheater. On the disk's opposite end stood a familiar figure. Yang was never too great with remembering names, but this man's came to her mind instantly.

"Are you ready to begin?" Asked General Ironwood.

Yang spun her wheelchair around without a word. The path that she had traveled upon, however, had vanished, and the door shut. She was trapped.

"What do you want?" she asked hesitantly.

"I believe you have already been informed," replied Ironwood stiffly, "that you are here today for your rehabilitation."

"Yeah, but why are _you_ here?"

"I will be presiding over the rehabilitation." Without warning, he pulled a massive gray revolver from inside his suit. "We will now begin."

 **BANG**

The gunshot filled the room, echoing off the empty seats and walls with an unyielding harshness. Yang found herself on the floor, dazed and confused.

"Acceptable." said Ironwood, as he drank deeply from an unlabeled coffee cup. Yang could barely make him out over the sound of her own ringing ears.

 **BANG**

As with the first shot, Yang's body acted purely out of instinct, hurling itself away from its previous location. She rolled clumsily to the side, just in time to avoid the bullet that buried itself in the floor where she resided mere moments ago.

"What…" she gasped, already out of breath, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I am not very fond of repeating myself, Yang Xiao Long," said Ironwood. Frowning, he lowered the coffee cup from his lips. "I'm here to help you adjust to the use of your new arm."

"That's what I'm saying, how the he-"

Ironwood's gun roared again, cutting off her sentence. She dove away, but more bullets followed, sending her scrambling from side to side, just quickly enough to escape harm.

How…" she panted, "How is this supposed to _help_ me?! Are you crazy?"

Ironwood didn't answer.

"What could possibly make you think that shooting at an injured person is a good idea?"

"Oh I would never do anything like that."

Suddenly, Ironwood lept forward, crossing the ground between him and Yang nearly as quickly as his bullets. He delivered a fierce kick to the girl's side, sending her tumbling away to the disk's edge, where she finally came to rest.

"The injured require great care and attention," said Ironwood, straightening his tie, and walking toward Yang's collapsed frame, "It is the solemn duty of every man and woman at this facility to ensure the safety and wellbeing of every person here, until they can make a full recovery." He lifted his cup to his mouth again, draining it dry. Seeing this, he reached into his suit and pulled out an ornate silver flask. He poured its contents liberally into the cup, stowed the flask away, and took another drink. "And I take this duty _very_ seriously."

He stopped a few feet away from Yang, and gazed down at her dispassionately.

"But none of that matters, miss Xiao Long, because you are not _injured_."

Slowly, Yang sat up. "Not injured?" She asked in a voice that was quiet, but trembling with rage. "Do you have eyes in that thick head of yours? Do you even know why I'm here?". She lifted up her right arm as a reminder, letting light glint off its metal frame.

Ironwood crouched down next to the girl, staring her straight in the eyes. She could smell the alcohol on his breath.

"I've seen more hurt people in my life than you're ever known. I've watched good men and women lose their homes, their friends, their families, their health, everything. Sometimes they stand back up, and sometimes they don't." He paused for a moment, before continuing. "I've become quite good at figuring out which type everyone is." He tapped his face, near the eyebrow. "It's in the eyes, see? And you, well… when I look into your eyes, I see flames."

Yang looked away from Ironwood. "You don't know anything about me…" she mumbled.

"I've read the reports. I've hear the accounts of your teachers and peers. I've seen you fight. I know a _lot_ about you, Yang Xiao Long, much more than you think." Ironwood's gaze never shifted, not even by an inch. "But what I don't know, is why you're here on the floor, instead of out there taking back what's yours."

Yang opened her mouth to protest, but was stifled by Ironwood's swiftly raised palm. "Don't tell me that you're hurt. You're the healthiest patient that this hospital has ever admitted. Even anaesthetizing you for surgery was a challenge. I was told it was like trying to sedate an _Ursa_. As for your recovery, well, you've been using that arm this whole time, haven't you?

It was true. She'd tried to hide it. She'd pretended that it didn't work properly, that its control was still out of her reach so she could stay alone in her room, sequestered away from the rest of the world.

No, that wasn't quite right. She'd tried to convince herself that she couldn't use it, and she'd succeeded. But, in the heat of the moment, when Ironwood had leveled his gun at her, her instincts had taken over. Her right and left arms had worked in perfect unison to protect her as she dodged.

Ironwood stood up, and folded his arms over his chest. "So, answer the question. Why are you here?"

Yang looked at the ground. "It's because mrbl mrbl mrbl…"

"Speak up!" barked Ironwood.

"It's because I failed!" shouted Yang suddenly. "I'm here because I messed up!" She climbed to her feet and met Ironwood's gaze, teeth bared in anger. "I never had a dream like they did. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, they all had something they wanted, something that they'd put their lives on the line for, but I didn't. I thought… I thought, if I couldn't find my dream, then I could at least protect theirs."

She marched toward Ironwood, steam rising up from her hospital gown.

"But I _failed_. Ruby lost her friends, Weiss was taken away, and Blake… Blake almost died! And on top of that, I couldn't even protect myself!"

Yang halted a few feet away from Ironwood, staring at him challengingly.

"I'm here because I'm a failure."

Ironwood regarded her impassively before responding.

"How _idiotic._ "

Something snapped in Yang. Filled with fury, she balled her fists and threw her right arm forward, mustering all her strength into a single blow.

A sound like a thunderclap followed her fist's impact, echoing throughout the whole arena.

" _Pathetic._ " Ironwood held Yang's hand in his own, displaying all the effort and exertion one would use to lift up a tissue. "Pathetic," he said again, staring down at Yang's crimson eyes. "Is that all you have to say?"

Yang tried to pull herself away, but the general's grip was like iron.

"You are not a failure, Yang Xiao Long," said Ironwood, leaning uncomfortably close to Yang's face.

Without warning, he turned and flung the girl across the platform, where she collided heavily with the ground.

"You are a child!" He barked, "a student! How _dare_ you come to me and attempt to claim that all blame lies with you! There is an order to things, Yang Xiao Long, and you are at the bottom of it."

Yang struggled to push herself to her feet as Ironwood continued.

"You weren't responsible for the safety of Beacon! You weren't responsible for the wellbeing of your classmates! You were never supposed to take on a terrorist leader!"

Yang managed to stand up, and rushed Ironwood the moment she found her balance. She tried to block Ironwood out, focusing on the frantic sound of her beating heart, but his words cut deep into her mind regardless of her efforts.

"Nothing that occurred that night was your responsibility! It was the teachers'! It was the army's! It was **MINE**!"

Yang threw blow after blow at Ironwood, but each one was diverted effortlessly. Ironwood's guard was impeccable, keeping him from even take a single step back from Yang's assault.

"I am the failure!" he bellowed. "I am responsible for the school, for your friends, for your arm! How dare you speak such a lie to my face!" This last sentence was punctuated by an uppercut delivered directly into Yang's stomach, knocking all the wind out of her. She collapsed, curled up in pain.

Ironwood crouched down over the girl once again. Through blurry eyes and a disoriented mind, Yang's noticed that he looked tired. His clothes were clean and crisp, and his eyes clear and sharp as glass, but the dark rings that surrounded them showed the weight of a man who had found his bed a stranger for many nights.

"I won't accept it. I can't accept it," Ironwood muttered. "Tell me the truth."

The truth? She'd said the truth. She'd lived with the truth. The truth of her weakness had lived with her ever since that night. She'd wallowed in its weight, unable to find any way out from its undeniable certainty. She had already given him the truth.

But some part of her disagreed.

"I…"

 _Don't. Don't think about it._

"I don't…"

 _Stop. Don't say anything else._

Ironwood's piercing blue eyes stared at her mercilessly.

"You what?"

 _Don't do it. Don't answer him. Close your eyes and empty your thoughts and go back to your bed. There's nothing good for you here._

"I don't know."

 _No._

"I don't know." repeated Yang. "I just can't understand why they…"

 _Don't say it._

"Why did they leave me?"

Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled out like a river. It was the first time she'd cried since that day when Blake turned her head and doubted her words.

"We talked about it!" she screamed. "We agreed to be together, to rely on each other, but she ran anyway! I trusted her, and she _left_." Yang was bent over the floor now, hitting the cold tiles with her fists. "The others, I can understand. Weiss has her family, and Ruby her dream, but I just can't see why Blake ran, no matter how damn hard I try!"

"So I gave up," she said, staring weakly at the floor. "There's no point. Sometimes bad things just happen. Sometimes there's things we just can't understand."

"That's not true-"

"No! It _is_ true. You don't get it, I've lived my whole life trying to understand _one_ person, and all I've gained in that time is more questions. And now I've been left behind by someone else for reasons I just. Don't. Get. I'm done being hurt by these people." Yang stood up, and weakly wiped the tears from her eyes. "Let me out of here. I want to go back to my room now.

"Tell me, Yang Xiao Long," said Ironwood, "if you were to see miss Belladonna again, what would you say to her?"

Yang had no response. A hundred emotions boiled in her mind, but nothing came forth in answer to the question. "I don't know..." she began, but Ironwood raised up a hand to silence her.

"I'm not asking you for an answer this moment," he said, "I'm asking you to start. Start _thinking_."

Yang turned back to face Ironwood. The man she saw was not the one she knew. With his shoulders collapsed and eyes looking downward, Ironwood looked more like a lifeless mannequin than a leader of armies. As she watched, his left arm grabbed his right, and cradled it sadly. Only then did she notice his glove, torn open by the force of her earlier blows, and what lay beneath its tattered fabric.

Something began to burn inside Yang, in a place she had long ago hidden away, for fear of the blaze growing out of control and consuming her. Visions of her mother's face filled her mind, stoking the flames from embers to wildfires, blazing through her mind uncontrollably.

Yang grit her teeth, and felt her eyes burst into a bright crimson hue. The inferno grew and grew inside of her, willing her to tear the world apart in search of answers like she had done so long ago.

But Yang was not consumed. She gripped her right arm, and felt the cool metal that composed it. She thought of her friends, her father, her sister, her school. She thought of her past, her joys, her sorrows, everything she could think of.

She was _furious_ , but she was in control. Ethereal flames burst from her skin, licking the air around her, but found no purchase in the world, and burned away to nothing.

"What will you do?" asked Ironwood hoarsely.

Yang's flames vanished, and her eyes returned to their usual lilac. Ironwood was looking at her with hopeful, almost hungry, eyes.

What would she do?

Yang felt the corners of her mouth lift up ever so slightly.

"I'll... have to think about it."

* * *

 _Days later…_

Yang pushed her arms into her jacket's sleeves, happy to finally feel the touch of clothing that wasn't the hospital's plain white gowns. She hesitated just a moment before picking up Ember Celica, and sliding them onto her wrists.

Smiling confidently, she strode out of the changing room and into the hospital's immaculate hallways. Ironwood was waiting for her at the building's exit, with Winter standing at rigid attention at his side.

He looked better than when she last saw him. The circles under his eyes had lost a touch of their darkness.

"Hey~" she said, shooting them both a cheery wave. Ironwood smiled almost imperceptibly in reply, but Winter's expression remained unchanged.

"You're doing well then?" asked Ironwood.

"Fit as fiddle," replied yang, bumping her fists together.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Ironwood in a surprisingly warm tone. He coughed awkwardly before continuing in his normal voice.

"Er, I'm here to give you something, actually." He pulled a small envelope from his pocket, and handed it to Yang.

The envelope was unassuming at first glance, but a closer look revealed a different story. It _oozed_ wealth, the type of wealth that didn't need to show off. The paper was shockingly soft, and inlaid with delicate patterns pressed softly into its frame. A golden border ran gently along the paper's perimeter, and it was sealed by a bright splotch of red wax. In the wax was pressed a familiar sign: a stylized snowflake composed of sharp shapes.

"It was given to me by a Schnee family representative," said Ironwood, "The same one who delivered the request for your operation."

Yang paused with the envelope half open. "Hold on, did you say the Schnee family? I thought Qrow set this all up."

"Did Qrow say that?" said Winter through a scowl, showing the first sign of life since Yang saw her. "That uncouth…"

"Now, now," said Ironwood diplomatically, "He's not here, so there's no point in dwelling on it.

"Yes, the Schnees approached us about your operation." continued Ironwood. "They provided the funds, the airship, everything but the procedure itself. That letter was to be given to you after your recovery."

Yang looked down at the envelope, which she had finished opening. Inside lay a small ticket, far gaudier than the envelope that enclosed it, but also far cheaper in feel.

"Lancet Concert Presents… a performance by Weiss Schnee!" said Yang aloud, reading the ticket's title. "Did… did she send this to me? What's she doing?"

Winter shook her head. "I don't know. Things have been strange in the family after… after that night in Beacon. Father's kept her out of public view since her took her back home. Even _I_ haven't seen her." She frowned, concern evident in her expression. "I haven't received a ticket for that concert either." Winter looked away from Yang for a moment before speaking again, this time in a reluctant, halting voice. "Could… could I ask you to…"

"You got it!" said Yang with a smile. "I'll do everything I can!"

Yang stowed the ticket away in her pockets and stepped towards the door before suddenly stopping and turning around and giving Ironwood a confident stare.

"Just so you know, once I find my answers, I'm coming back to repay you, General," She cracked her knuckles loudly, "For _everything_."

Ironwood folded his arms over his chest returned her stare calmly. "I'll look forward to it," he said, and smiled a genuine smile.

Yang smiled, and walked out into the cold.


End file.
